The United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities is observed on December 3 to focus on issues that affect people with disabilities worldwide.
This year’s theme is Inclusion matters: Access and empowerment for people of all abilities’ that seeks to reduce inequalities and remove barriers to equal participation for persons with disabilities in society. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) stipulates the importance of interventions to improve access to different domains of the environment including buildings, transportation, information, and communication.
The UN General Assembly in the recent years has repeatedly emphasised that the genuine achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed development goals requires the inclusion and integration of the rights, and well-being, as well as the perspective of persons with disabilities in development efforts at national, regional and international levels.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in a 2011 study estimated that 15.3 per cent of the world’s population deals with some or the other kind of disability. In India the disabled population has increased by 22.4 per cent between 2001 and 2011. The number of disabled, which was 2.19 crore in 2001, rose in 2011 to 2.68 crore.
As per the 2001 Census, there were 10, 21,335 disabled persons in Odisha. As per the 2011 Census, the total disabled population is 12, 44,402, registering a growth of 21.84 per cent during the decade. The percentage of the State’s disabled population to total population has increased from 2.78 in the 2001 Census to 2.96 in the 2011 Census.
Disabled people face many obstacles in their day-to-day activities in public places. In some areas there is no proper access to move for a wheelchair user. This becomes a major hurdle for disabled people to move freely. Disabled friendly toilets are mostly absent in railway station, bus stand, Government offices, schools, colleges and hospitals. There are many housing issues which individuals with disabilities confront when trying to live in the community. In any new housing development in a city, most of the units are designed for general needs. However, among them 2 to 5 per cent are disabled people.
Disabled persons encounter many obstacles that prevent them from moving about freely and safely. Therefore, while designing the built environment, adequate space should be allocated for persons using mobility devices, e.g. wheelchairs, crutches and walkers, as well as those walking with the assistance of other persons. Attention should be given to dimensions of wheelchairs used locally. This decides the width of entrances and exits, width of the passage / corridor, lift size and toilet size. A wheelchair may be operated by the user alone or with a helper’s assistance for Non-Ambulatory. Design requirements for Semi-Ambulatory include, width of passage for crutch users, finishes of floor surface with non slip floor material, installation of handrail to support the body weight at the critical places such as staircase, toilet, ramp, passage with a change of level, extension of handrail on the flat landing at the top and bottom of the stairs to prevent slipping off the cane or crutch from the side of the stairs or ramps. Persons with totally blind or with impaired vision make use of other senses such as hearing or touch to compensate for the lack of vision. It is necessary to give instructions accessible through the sense of touch (hands, fingers or legs).
Design requirements include, use of guiding blocks for persons with impaired vision to guide them within the buildings and outside the building, installation of information board in Braille, installation of audible signage (announcements) and sufficient walking space for safe walking. Hearing Disabilities Persons in this category are totally deaf or have difficulty in hearing. They generally use their sight to gather information in public places. Design requirements include provision of information board in an easily understandable manner, layout diagrams to help the persons easily reach the desired place. Barrier Free Environment may be applied for residential buildings, commercial buildings, hospitals, educational institutions, religious centers etc.
Today information and communication technologies in particular have impacted a lot of people’s daily lives. However, not all people have access to technology and the higher standards of living it allows. A number of cities and metropolitan areas around the world are implementing the “Smart City” concept. The smart city mission in India is to improve the quality of life in 100 fast growing urban centers, including Bhubaneswar. The aim is to increase all citizens quality of life and to improve the efficiency and quality of the services provided by city planning authorities. Smart cities can be a place where the disabled feel free to move in public places. But in Bhubaneswar the majority of the public places are not barrier free.
Most of the early considerations around smart cities have been about better use of energy, more efficient traffic flow and smart services. Besides, the smart city should provide more inclusive environment for the disabled people to participate in the smart environment. For example, a wheelchair user going to the shopping, public places, railway stations and airports should be able to identify the ideal route to the particular area. The open spaces are designed in such a manner that they can be used by everyone.
This approach to the smart city planning process will benefit the disabled persons. At least 2-5 per cent of the residential buildings in the city should be made accessible to persons with disabilities by providing disabled-friendly lifts, toilets as well as signage. In order to meet the need of particularly disabled people in housing, the house should be as barrier-free as possible. Before building any apartment house for the handicapped, it is advisable to note street conditions and access to transportation. Besides, small-scale modifications within the housing complexes like provision of ramps for wheel chair may be required to get in and out of their homes. For the convenience of wheelchair-bound persons the authority should provide lifts and widen the doorway for them as far as practicable.
Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1996 enacted by the Government of India on January 1, 1996 is to create barrier free environment for persons with disabilities and to make special provisions for the integration of persons with disabilities into the social mainstream.
Odisha Government has enacted Persons with Disabilities (Equal opportunities, Protection of right and full participation) Odisha Rules, 2003. As per the rules the buildings, places, transportation systems for public use will be made barrier free.
(Dr Praharaj teaches in the Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar)